Karam SD*, Dottori M.`, Ogawa K.*, Henderson J.T.@, Boyd A.W.#, Pasquale E.B.`, and Bothwell M*.

*Department of Physiology and Biophysics,
University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195

`Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory, The Salk Institute,
10010 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.

#The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research,
Royal Parade, Parkville, Victoria 3050, Australia.

@Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences,
Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto
19 Russell St., Toronto, ONT M5S 2S2

Developmental Brain Research,135(1-2), pp. 29-38, 2002

Abstract

The Purkinje cells of both the adult and the developing cerebellar cortex are organized into parasagittal stripes or 'segments' expressing a variety of biochemical markers. We show that in the developing mouse cerebellar cortex, members of the Eph receptor gene family are expressed in mediolaterally alternating Purkinje cell segments. Since members of the Eph receptors family have been shown to play a role in hindbrain segmentation and boundary formation (Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B: Biol. Sci. 355 (2000) 993), we analyzed the effect of a null mutation of the EphA4 gene on Purkinje cell compartmentation. Using well characterized markers of Purkinje cell compartmentation in both the developing and the adult cerebellum, we observed no significant alteration in the banding pattern of these markers between the EphA4 knockout mice and their wild type controls. The ribboned pattern of migrating granule cells in the developing cerebellum also appears unaltered. The expression of other members of this gene family, including ephrin-B2, EphA2, and ephrin-A1, in a compartmentalized pattern within the Purkinje cell layer suggests a possible redundancy and/or a compensation of EphA4 function in the segmental patterning of cerebellar Purkinje cells.

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